Dragonrim: The Perfect Game

I've been playing Skyrim alot lately and loving it. I absolutely loved all three Dragon Age (Dragon Age: Origins, DA: Awakenings, DA2), as well as the DLCs. But neither game is perfect.

First things first, I don't like FPS. Not a fan. I like RPGs. I like the immersivness of them, the epic feel of the stories. Combat is way down on my list of things a great game has to have. Well it has to have combat, but I'm fine with fairly simple set up like Skyrim (although playing a rogue in DA2 was AWESOME!!).

Like I said, neither game is perfect. But combine the two? Now we're talking.

Dragon Age has the immersive story and character interaction that I love. You grow to depend/feel for the followers in DA. Their stories develop as yours does. Your decisions affect them, even to the point that you may lose them as a followers. Walking around town, they interact with eachother.

But Dragon Age was linear in it's zones. You couldn't just wander the countryside. Even though there were choices in how to play, it was still fairly rigid.

Skyrim on the other hand is HUGE and open. I've been playing for 100 hours and I'm not even 1/2 way through the main quest. There is just so much to do. Almost too much to do. But the interaction with the NPCs is pretty thin, even the ones that you can have as companions. Skyrim is lacking in that regards.

But Dragon Age isn't. Dragon Age is lacking in the size/openness of the world.

But Skyrim isn't.

So take the two games, mash 'em together and you have my perfect game.

Amalur: Reckoning And The Gold Demo

So they recently released the demo for Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning. I went on XBox Live to download it. Wanted to check it out, see if the game would be worth picking up.

Turns out that the demo is Xbox Live Gold memberships only.

Seriously?

That's the stupidest thing I've heard.

Reckoning is not a multiplayer game. There is no online component (beyond potential DLC similar to Skyrim and Dragon Age).

So why the hell is the demo exclusive to Gold members only?

I have 0 need to pay for Xbox Live. I don't go online with my Xbox.

This just pisses me off.

Stupid.

I can't think of any reason to make a non-multiplayer game's demo exclusive to Xbox Live Gold members only.

i-heart-radio Not Being Loved?

So back before the new year, couple months before, kept hearing ads (on the radio) for this new app called i-heart-radio. I'm sure you've all heard about them by now right? Anyways, the free radio app (which is basically Pandora) was going to be "ad free" until the end of the year. Was meant to let people try it out before they would either have to deal with ads or pay for it.

Well, started hearing the other day new ads for the app. Now it's saying "ad free until the end of April".

I don't think they got enough subscribers.

Come May, will it now say "ad free until the end of August"?

Podcast Are The Devil

I don't like podcasts. I haven't listened to a single one.

I'm old school in that I like reading. I don't mind staring at a computer screen and reading an article (which is kind of funny since I'm against e-readers). Bill Simmons is my favorite sportswriter but I'm so disappointed that he went to doing alot of podcats. I loved reading his stuff but now it's so few and far between, but he does a weekly podcast. I just won't listen to it.

He puts an article up, I'm all over it, even if it's Basketball which I don't relaly follow.

But a podcast? Easy Skip.

The other thing that I don't like is video news on the internet. I'm fine with YouTube videos and that kind of thing, but if I see a news article and I click on it and get a video, I'm not even bothering to read it.

The other day on Yahoo, saw a headline about a picture, so I clicked on it to see the picture. The link brought me to a video of a newscaster talking about the picture, so I had to watch the video for it to come up.

Hate that.

I love technology. I love the internet. But I like to read. Watching is for movies. Listening is for music. Articles are for reading.

Brees Was A Good Trade For Chargers. Sproles Was Not.

In a recent Snap Judgments on CNNSI.Com, Don Banks asked "and when will Smith's decision to go with Philip Rivers over Brees at quarterback in 2006 rightly go down as one of the worst personnel calls in league history?"

The answer?

Never.

Drew Brees is on of the top four QBs in the league, NOW, there's no doubting that (Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning pre-neck surgery, have to wait and see what happens when he returns). Rounding out the Top 5 would be Ben Roethlisberger or Philip Rivers. That same Rivers that Banks is saying was such a downgrade from Brees.

We have to remember some things about the decision to jettison Brees:
1- He was coming off major shoulder surgery and no one was sure if he would be the same (similar to what is being questioned about Manning now).
2- He wasn't the QB he is now back then.

Look at his numbers with the Chargers:
2002: 76.9 rating, 17 TD, 16 INT (his first full year), 8-8 record (4th in division)
2003: 67.5 rating, 11 TD, 15 INT, 4-12 record (4th in division)
2004: 104.8 rating, 27 TD, 7 INT, 12-4 record (1st in division)
2005: 89.2 rating, 24 TD, 15 INT, 9-7 record (3rd in division)

Decent. A year that showed what he was capable of, but not Top 3 QB numbers or results. During his time with the Chargers he led them to one playoff game and lost in the Wild Card round to the Jets. Where was the evidence to A.J. Smith that Drew Brees would someday break Dan Marino's passing record? Where wsa the evidence that this was a guy that would lead the Chargers to the Super Bowl?

GMs aren't fortune tellers. They can't see what the future will bring. All Smith can do is go off of the evidence before him. With the shoulder surgery, Brees not having been the greatest during his Chargers time, the availability of Rivers in the draft. What was Smith to do?

History will show that Brees is better then Rivers, at least right now, who knows what the future holds for Rivers. But really, there is no gurantee that if Brees had stayed with the Chargers the results would still have been the same. There might not have been a Super Bowl victory. There might not have been the passing record. None of that is guranteed

This deal wasn't the greatest trade in the history of the NFL. But it wasn't anywhere near being "one of the worst personnel calls in league history". Not even close.

For comparasion let's look at Rivers numbers:
2006: 92.0 rating, 22 TD, 9 INT, 14-2 (1st in division, lost to Patriots in Divisional round)
2007: 82.5 rating, 21 TD, 15 INT, 11-5 (1st in division, lost to Patriots in Conference Championship)
2008: 105.6 rating, 34 TD, 11 INT, 8-8 (1st in division, lost to Steelers in Divisional round)
2009: 104.4 rating, 28 TD, 9 INT, 13-3 (1st in division, lost to the Jets in Divisional round)
2010: 101.8 rating, 30 TD, 13 INT, 9-7 (2nd in division)
2011: 88.7 rating, 27 TD, 20 INT, 8-8 (2nd in division)

So where has Rivers been so awful? Four division titles is bad? Sure any GM would trade a Super Bowl victory for 4 division titles. But like I said before, there's no gurantee that Brees would have won a Super Bowl with the Chargers.

Let's look at Brees numbers when he joined the Saints:
2006: 96.3 rating, 26 TD, 11 INT, 10-6 (1st in division, lost to Bears in Conference Championship)
2007: 89.4 rating, 28 TD 18 INT, 7-9 (3rd in division)
2008: 96.3 rating, 34 TD, 17 INT, 8-8 (4th in division)
2009: 109.6 rating, 34 TD, 11 INT, 13-3 (1st in division, won the Super Bowl)
2010: 90.9 rating, 33 TD, 22 INT, 11-5 (2nd in division, lost to Seahawks in Wild Card round)
2011: 110.6 rating, 46 TD, 14 INT, 13-3 (1st in division, playing 49ers in Divisional Round this weekend)

Brees has become one of the top 3/4 (if Manning is playing) QBs in the league. But really how far off from Rivers is he? Like I said, there's no gurantee the same thing would have happened if he had stayed with the Chargers.

Using Banks logic that trading Brees away was so bad, it stands to reason that if he had gone to Miami that the same thing would have happened. He would have won a Super Bowl, he would have passed Marino's record.

Does anyone really believe that?

Now if Brees had done what he had done in New Orleans and Rivers had pulled a Vince Young in San Diego, then it would have been a bad move. But how much of the Chargers not advancing is to blame on Rivers?

Brees is damn good. Rivers is good. Calling the Brees trade one of the worst personal moves in League history is just dumb.

And I usually like what Banks said, but this one was just so crazy I had to comment.

Now the trade of Darren Sproles? That was dumb.

(the difference is that the evidence was there in San Diego that Sproles was capable of doing what he did this year with the Saints, trading him away was just stupid)

The reason the GMs for the Bears and Colts Got Fired? T.J. Yates

T.J. Yates is the 3rd string quarterback for the Houston Texans. He had a 2-3 record in the games he played and he won the most important game in Texans history, their first playoff game on Saturday (last night).

So what does that have to do with the Indy Colts and Chicago Bears? Both teams fired their GMs but kept their coaches. This is important because it means the owners think/realize that the coaches did their best with the pieces they were give. And who gives the coaches those pieces? The GMs.

Back to Yates. Texans' GM Rick Smith drafted Yates in the 5th round. Was it to be a pure back-up or possible starter is unknown, but it is known that Smith assumed/thought that Yates would be able to play and win games for them. No one ever thinks they'll be that far down the depth chart due to injury, but have to be prepared for it to happen.

Indy lost Peyton Manning for the season and all they had was Curtis Painter. They didn't show the confidence in Painter right from the beginning, they went out and signed Kerry Collins to be their starter. And when he went down to injury, it was the Painter era and that had disastrious results.

Chicago lost Jay Cutler to injury and turned to Caleb Hanie, and the talking head opinion at the time was that Hanie would be just good enough to limp the Bears into the playoffs, since they were already set up well by Cutler. That never happened and it took the Bears GM awhile to give up on Hanie.

It's the GMs job to provide the pieces to field a winning team. The back-up shouldn't be as good as the starter but needs to be capable of winning games (see Patriots with Matt Cassel and Green Bay with Matt Flynn). It's the responsiblity of the GM to prepare the team's personal for the day the starter goes down. That means they need to provide the team with a back-up that will and can win games.

Both Indy's GM, Bill Polian (and son Chris Polian) and the Bear's GM, Jerry Angelo, failed to do that. That's the biggest reason they lost their jobs. The Indy situation was worse then the Bears. Indy's defense went down. This was a team built around Manning and what he was capable of doing. When he went down, the team wasn't the same. That's the fault of the GM.

You might say "But Kansas City had a similar situation. Matt Cassel went down and Tyler Palko was horrible". And you would be correct in mentioning that. The difference between KC and Indy/Chicago is that KC's GM is newer. Angelo and the Polians have been in their jobs for years, Pioli is on year 4. That gives him a little bit of leeway, but not much. There is no excuse for Polians and Angelo.

A 5th round, 3rd string QB cost two long-tenured GMs their jobs by highlighting how badly they had failed at it in recent years.

Lego Will Own My Soul

So I've gotten the Lego bug.

I loved Legos as a kid. One of my favorite toys. I had a ton of sets but the funnest was throwing all the pieces together and coming up with my own designs: houses, spaceships, cars, etc.. I'd even make bases for my G.I. Joes.

I've always figured that playing with Legos helped lead me to my career choice, architecture.

I stopped buying 'em when grew up, much like other toys, and have now come full circle again, much like other toys. I would always stop in the toy aisles and check out the Legos and always had the urge to buy them, but it wasn't until recently that I gave in.

At first, when I heard about the upcoming DC and Marvel sets, I wanted to get into the Lego City stuff and build a huge city for my super heroes to fight in. But I passed on that idea because there just wasn't enough buildings that I liked. So then I decided I'd do a huge Kingdoms display and have two armies battling it out. Saw alot of older sets I wanted. And picked up a couple Kingdoms sets (anyone want to buy 'em from me now?) to get me started.

But it was going to be so expensive. Legos are one of those things that I will lose myself in if I'm not careful. There's alot of other things I want and not enough money (or house space) to get all the Lego sets that I felt I would need for my Kingdoms (and it would include some Pirates of the Caribbean sets, Harry Potter sets, and older Castle themed sets that would all fit together).

So I was bummed because wasn't going to be able to do what I wanted the way I wanted (which happens alot with toylines I'm finding).

Then I saw the Creator and Modular sets and fell in love.

Creator Buildings
Modular Sets

And then there's the Winter Village stuff:
Winter Village

Now I've missed 3 or 4 Creator houses, 2 or 3 Modular (which cost ALOT in the aftermarket) and 1 of the Winter Villages. Technically I've missed all except the Log Cabin and Hillside House, since those are the only ones have currently.

Out of the Architecture Series I only am interested in the Farnsworth House, Robie House and Falling Water. Those would look awesome displayed on my desk at work.

So with cost being an issue and having to limit myself I finally nailed down what Lego lines I'm going to collect. The Creator houses are sweet and fall in line with my career. The Modular sets are just amazing. The Winter Village sets fall along the same lines.

So I was satisfied with what my limited Lego purchasing would be (limited in number of sets, not cost) and then I saw this video:



They will all be mine.

I'm already thinking of what additional sets and mini-figures I'll need to complete my Lord of the Rings sets.

Luckily the DC sets didn't really interest me. But haven't seen the Marvel sets yet.

So much for having my Lego obsession under control.

The new X-Wing and Y-Wing sets are looking great.

/sigh

Tebow Is The New Wildcat

Remember a couple of seasons (this is about football, the season spans multiple years) ago when the Miami Dolphins debuted the Wildcat to great success?

They demolished my beloved Patriots and used it to carry them to an AFC East title and the playoffs. The next year though, teams were ready for it and even drafting a "wildcat quarterback" (Pat White, who is out of the NFL now) didn't help. The wildcat has now become an occasional play used to try and surprise the defenses. Although how much of a surprise is it when the QB lines up in the slot (or is off the feed completely)?

So that brings us to Tebow and the success he's had since he took over as starter (although, the last couple of weeks have definately put a dent in that success and only helped reinforce why I think he's the new wildcat).

Tebow caught the other teams by surprise. He's a bad passer, worse then many of the back-ups that are out there (Tyler Palko, Caleb Hanie.. I'm looking at you). But he's just good enough that you have to pay attention to the possibility of a throw. His real threat is running. So when he first showed up behind center it was a surprise to the other teams and that's how he was able to lead the Broncos to victory. He was just good enough that the defense kept them in the games.

Not to take away from his obvious leadership abilities, which is what got his team to rally behind him. It caused the defense to play better and the offense as well.

But look whats happened the last couple of weeks. He's been stuffed. Teams are starting to figure out how to stop him. He's become one dimensional. They aren't fearing his passing abilities like they have to with Cam Newton and Michael Vick. Tebow is becoming the new wildcat. A fad, so to speak, that surprised people with how effective it was but once they figured it out, it wasn't as effective anymore.

During the draft hype leading up to Cam Newton being selected #1, I was pretty confused as to why Newton was #1 and Tebow was a shock that he got picked in the first round. To me, with what I knew going in (not a huge college football fan), they seemed the same type of QB.

But there is a difference. Cam Newton is a good passer. Tim Tebow is not.

The Fan Is Back

After a lengthy hiatus, The Practical Fan blog is back. Over at Kitty's Pryde, where I'm Editor-In-Chief/Content Coordinator, I've been spending alot of time on comic books but I have thoughts and opinions (oh, I have opinions) about alot of other things. So this is where I'll be talking about those.

Look for alot of posts real quick in the next day or so, about my big Hobbit kick that I'm on, what my ultimate video game would be, my renewed love of Legos and even Tim Tebow.